The PWHL Players Association has tapped former OneTeam Partners interim CEO Malaika Underwood to take over as Exec Dir of the union beginning March 3. She will replace veteran hockey exec Brian Burke, who signed a two-year contract to serve as the union's founding leader in 2023 ahead of the league’s launch.

Underwood brings a wealth of experience representing the commercial rights of athletes to her first in-house role at a labor union. The 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree and former USA Baseball women's national team player led OneTeam Partners through a transition from 2022-2023 following the departure of founding CEO Ahmad Nassar. Her tenure culminated in an equity investment deal valuing the company at $1.8B. During Underwood’s three years with the company, OneTeam represented the commercial interests of numerous major athletes’ unions, including the NFLPA, MLBPA, MLSPA, WNBPA and NWSLPA.

Prior to joining OneTeam Partners, Underwood spent five years at The Brandr Group, where she was one of four founding team members. She has also held leadership roles at IMG and the Collegiate Licensing Company.

The PWHLPA is in the second season of an eight-year collective bargaining agreement with the league, which is owned by Dodgers co-owner Mark Walter’s holding company. The union negotiated and ratified the deal prior to Burke’s hiring with the assistance of Cohen Weiss and Simon partner Susan Davis, attorney John Langel, Brauti Thorning partner Chris Burkett and Aird Berlis partner Jennifer Bishop.

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Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner were elected into the Baseball HOF last night, and Cooperstown could be in for a record-breaking ceremony when they are inducted on July 27 along with Dave Parker and Dick Allen. Suzuki will be the first Japanese-born player inducted into the Hall, and MLB Network’s Jon Morosi, citing the large contingent of fans expected to come over from the Far East, said, “This will be the biggest crowd to ever attend an induction ceremony in Cooperstown.” The HOF claims the current record is the estimated 82,000 fans who attended the 2007 ceremony headlined by Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. ( “2025 Hall of Fame Induction Announcement,” MLB Network, 1/21). 

THE ATHLETIC's Jayson Stark wrote Main Street in Cooperstown "has never before been confused with Little Tokyo," but "that’s about to happen" for Suzuki's induction. It's "going to be a celebration for the ages" (THE ATHLETIC, 1/21). The crowd for July's induction "should be a massive and raucous and multi-national contingent" (USA TODAY, 1/21).

In addition to his election to the Baseball HOF, the Mariners announced Tuesday evening that Ichiro’s No. 51 jersey "will be retired as part of the Ichiro Hall of Fame Weekend" from Aug. 8-10 at T-Mobile Park (SEATTLE TIMES, 1/21). On Tuesday night, Seattle’s Space Needle "was lit blue in honor of Suzuki" (AP, 1/21).

The Orioles are rolling out a fan-friendly pricing concessions menu for the 2025 season at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The menu includes 12 items, 11 of which cost $5 or less, including soda with free refills, and will be available at eight locations spread around the ballpark. Catie Griggs, who was hired by the team last September as its President of Business Operations, worked with Orioles F&B provider Levy, which operates at Camden Yards under the Brick and Whistle moniker, and beverage partner Coca-Cola Consolidated on what they’re calling the Birdland Value Menu. The driving thinking was to provide a range of different experiences for fans, “and we recognize affordability is a big part of that,” said Griggs.

This will be the third time in Griggs’ career that she’s been involved with a fan-friendly pricing concessions offering. Her first exposure came while working with Atlanta United as its Chief Business Officer when Mercedes-Benz Stadium (and Levy) opened with cheap segment of its concessions menu considered in the stadium’s design. And she instituted it again when she was with the Mariners at T-Mobile Park (and Sodexo Live) in 2022 before coming to the Orioles.

“I really got to see firsthand the impact of ensuring that all parts of the experience are accessible and what that can mean for your fans,” Griggs said.

This season, two Camden Yards F&B locations will offer both the value food and adult beverages, two will sell just food, and three just adult beverages from the Birdland Value Menu. Some of those locations are new to the stadium, while soda fountains were brought from behind concession stands out onto the concourses to enable free soda refills. Griggs said the team was too early in its design process for renovations to Camden Yards to know how and if the value menu would figure into larger structural changes at the stadium (like more kitchens).

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Netflix added a record 19 million subscribers in its fourth quarter, driven largely by Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul and the NFL. That brings the streamer’s total to 302 million paid subscribers, excluding Extra Member accounts.

In December, the NFL’s Christmas Day debut brought the streaming platform to 8.5% of total television viewing, according to data from Nielsen Gauge, the highest since July 2023.

Netflix raised its 2025 revenue guidance by $500 million to $43.5 billion-$44.5 billion, which the company said is due to higher-than-expected Q4 performance. Operating income exceeded $10B for the first time in company history in 2024.

Netflix also recently added the rights to the FIFA Women’s World Cup for 2027 and 2031, and earlier this month, it began its WWE “Raw” package.

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King’s Hawaiian is joining Joe Gibbs Racing beginning with the 2025 NASCAR season, giving the sweet-bread brand a new team partner after  previously aligning with RFK Racing. The deal is signed and due to be announced this morning with terms undisclosed, aside from the sides saying they’ll be together for multiple years. King’s Hawaiian will be the primary sponsor of the No. 11 Toyota driven by Denny Hamlin for four races annually along with an associate sponsor in all other Cup Series events. Such a deal at JGR would typically be valued in the low seven figures annually.

The California-based company, which was originally located in Hawaii and is owned by Irresistible Foods Group, was a sponsor of RFK dating back to 2022 but departed that team this past offseason, SBJ previously first reported. That came as King’s Hawaiian’s competitor, Bimbo Bakeries USA, is set to have exclusivity as a top vendor partner of Kroger’s new sponsorship program with RFK, after Kroger switched teams this past offseason. In ’25, King’s Hawaiian’s primaries with JGR will be at Atlanta in June, Daytona in August, Bristol in September and Martinsville in October.

This deal helps JGR fill the void left by FedEx this past offseason when it departed following one of the longest-running team sponsorships in NASCAR, dating back to 2005. King’s Hawaiian was founded in 1950 by Robert Taira and sells sweet rolls, slider buns and pretzel bites among other products. Irresistible, which is controlled by the Taira family, also owns Grillo’s Pickles, another sponsor in NASCAR.

Team owner Joe Gibbs told SBJ on Tuesday, “First of all, they’re a 75-year-old company, they’re family oriented, their family has been in racing and we think they fit our family ... for one thing. And I think their products -- every time you talk about King’s, they bring up their buns. For me it’s sliders and particularly the hamburger buns and then of course you’ve got their new stuff with pretzel bites, so their products, people I think love them and it’s great for us to be associated with a family like that, that has a racing background.”

NWSL club Angel City FC on Tuesday "cut the ribbon on the team’s massive new performance center" at California Lutheran Univ. in Thousand Oaks. New Angel City Sporting Dir Mark Parsons said the new facility "will be a big help in recruiting women to come play for his new team." The performance center is part of a 9-acre training base Angel City inherited from the Rams when the NFL team moved to Woodland Hills in August. It is the "largest and most modern in the NWSL history," boasting a "5,400-square-foot gym, three locker rooms, a film room, a medical treatment and hydrotherapy area, and a children’s playroom, among other things." Outside, there is "one full soccer pitch and an adjoining half field" (L.A. TIMES, 1/21).

Fanatics Collectibles has announced its first flagship store focusing on sports and entertainment trading cards and trading-card games. The 8,647 square-foot store -- designed by SDI Design -- will be on London’s Regent Street shopping district. The interior design will feature a center display of rare and desirable trading cards, interactive customer touchpoints, a personal card creation suite, and a studio for live and taped card pack openings.

The location is slated to open this spring and will feature Fanatics brands including Topps, Merlin, Match Attax and Bowman. While the store’s focus will be on its trading card properties, Fanatics will also sell apparel -- both from Topps and Mitchell & Ness -- and memorabilia such as signed jerseys and other equipment.

RELATED: Already a $30B marketplace, collectibles space expects continued explosive growth 

 

Topps President of Trading Cards David Leiner said the decision to go outside the U.S. to open the company’s first flagship store was done to grow the collector ecosystem in markets that executives believe have a strong upside.

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The ACC is expected to add a new sponsor to its roster.

The league, ACC Network and Disney are set to announce a multiyear deal that will make T. Rowe Price an official sponsor, sources told Sports Business Journal. Exact financial details were not readily available at press time.

T. Rowe Price, a global asset management company, will become the exclusive title sponsor of the ACC Men's Basketball Tournament through 2027. It will also have a presence at varying ACC Championship events throughout the year.

The company was previously on site for the ACC Football Championship game and is expected to be again at the Ally ACC Women’s Basketball Tournamentin Greensboro, N.C.  

The Women’s Beanpot returned to TD Garden Tuesday night for the second straight year, and the encore in the wake of last year’s first-ever appearance there "stood to remind us all that advancement and celebration of women’s sports is not about performative theatrics, but about sustaining momentum." The crowd "did its part too," with the 13,279 fans who "braved the cold" topping last year’s crowd by almost 3,000 and marking the fifth-largest crowd for a women’s Division 1 hockey game in NCAA history. The NESN broadcast "once again featured a female-led crew, from on-air talent to behind-the-scenes operators," more than 35 women in total, "showing but one more path to a sports career that many of those young girls in the stand might follow" (BOSTON GLOBE, 1/21).

Bubba Watson's LIV Golf team, RangeGoats GC, has added an apparel partnership with Minnesota-based Swannies Golf through a multiyear deal. Swannies, founded in 2015, will make five different polos for the team to wear throughout the season, starting next month in Saudi Arabia. More than 2,500 stores in the U.S. and Canada carry Swannies apparel. Integrity 9 Sports & Entertainment handles sales for the team. 

A handful of LIV teams are adding apparel partners as the new season begins. Phil Mickelson's HyFlyers GC signed a deal with Primo Golf,  and though partnerships have yet to be announced, players from Cam Smith's Ripper GC and Jon Rahm's Legion XIII have been spotted wearing apparel from Greyson Clothiers in the early parts of 2025. 

Belmont Park, home of the horse racing Triple Crown’s Belmont Stakes, is undergoing two separate but simultaneous renovations totaling more than $550M that will completely transform the horse racing facility, from modernizing horse racing and training facilities to creating new revenue generation possibilities through the infield and a new grandstand building.

The Pro Volleyball Federation has partnered with LTN to make live video production enhancements and expanded distribution across linear broadcast and streaming services in 2025 (PVF).

ESPN and the World Surf League have expanded their rights agreement with live coverage of the 2025 Championship Tour on ESPN+ across the U.S. and Latin America on Disney+, including Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and the Caribbean, excluding Brazil, El Salvador, and Costa Rica (WSL).

The Portland Pickles are "bringing a new pre-professional soccer team" in USL League Two, a league already with eight other teams in the Northwest and more than 100 teams nationwide. Play will "begin Monday," with further details announced early next month (Portland OREGONIAN, 1/21).

The SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS went with the header, "How Tony Parker sparked a French basketball revolution." There have been 53 French-born players to wear an NBA uniform. When the Sacramento Kings made Tariq Abdul-Wahad the 11th pick in the 1997 draft, he "became the first." Nearly three decades after Abdul-Wahad made the "unprecedented jump" from France to the NBA, there are "no more misconceptions -- the French can ball." Led by burgeoning 21-year-old French superstar Victor Wembanyama, the Spurs are in Paris this week to play a pair of showcase games against the Pacers on Thursday and Saturday at Accor Arena. The pipeline between France and the NBA "has provided the league with a steady stream of talent for decades." In recent years, "that pipeline has transformed into a gusher."

Also: 

• Dieter Kurtenbach: If the Warriors prioritize their future over Steph Curry’s prime, they’re ignoring history.

"Some myths say the treasure of the Nibelung was hidden under a promontory called this, on the Rhine near St. Goarshausen,"

"What is Lorelei?"